The Village Square

Saving contempt for our grandchildren

This video clip is PG-13 for language (and gesture).

Add comment July 31st, 2007

The sum of light

One of my favorite movie lines is from The Year of Living Dangerously:

“You do whatever you can about the misery that’s in front of you. Add your light to the sum of light.”

The character speaking was Billy Kwan, played by Linda Hunt (cast alongside a young Mel Gibson and Sigourney Weaver). Though he was speaking of poverty in Indonesia, it doesn’t seem like a half-bad general admonition for a way to live a life.

At the foundation of The Village Square is the concept that, when it comes to politics, we’re in need of a bit of light right about now (and the big-for-our-britches ambition that we can contribute to the sum). Dr. Law, co-chair of our board of directors characterized us as seeking “less heat, more light.”

Of late, we’ve witnessed the growth of partisan online blogs, where people who generally agree with each other “talk” (and sometimes yell). This isn’t necessarily a bad thing – it’s civic engagement, it can be “light” but too often it turns into “heat.” Too many of us now belong to a side which pitches half an argument. Two sides with half an argument each is no substitute for citizens who understand a whole argument.

Here at The Village Square blog, we’ll strive for whole arguments. If we care about truth telling by public servants, we must care about truth telling by all public servants, on the right and the left. If we care about media accuracy, we must care about media accuracy whether it benefits the right or the left.

And as we launch our Village Square, we need to resist the temptation to vilify an average citizen on the “other” side, who is, in reality, our neighbor down the street, the nice woman at the bookstore, our kid’s softball coach. It’s so much harder to hate “people” when you meet them face-to-face.

That doesn’t mean becoming a doormat and failing to pitch or even appear to believe in your argument, as good argument is fundamental to The Village Square. But argument must incorporate a larger perspective that allows us to argue AND hold the tension of opposites at the core of our democracy. Maybe in these partisan times, our new forum will be our own version of “The Year of Living Dangerously?”

And, if there is anyone out there still listening to anything other than the sound of his or her own voice, maybe someone will notice.

Add comment July 22nd, 2007

Coal postmortem Part B: “Second shooter on the grassy knoll”

In Thursday’s Tallahassee Democrat, Kim Williams (on the other side of the coal debate from Commissioner Katz) also authored a MY VIEW on lessons learned and the path ahead.

Mr. Williams reflected on his concern that tough fights like this tend to get unproductively personal and can degenerate into conspiratorial thinking, å la “the grassy knoll.” Mr. Williams’ take-home messages:

1. First, we still face an uncertain energy future. All of the “alternative energy” sources discussed to date simply will not meet our community’s growing energy needs. There is no simple answer, no magic potion or easy fix.

2. Second, we have to choose something, and we need to do it soon.

3. Third, we need to come together as a leadership community and solve this problem now. Understandably this issue can be an emotional and divisive one. But if we are to find a livable solution we must set aside our suspicions and our accusations and work to enlighten – not enrage – those who disagree with us.

Again, ignoring (for now) the “coal” part of our “coal postmortem,” heading straight toward process lessons learned, put into a Village-Square-ish context. . .

On “enlighten, not enrage those who disagree with us”: We couldn’t have said it better ourselves.

While “. . . we need to do it soon” at first sounds contradictory to Commissioner Katz’s “slow down enough to make an informed decision” let’s go out on a limb and say that they’re each touching on aspects of good decision making. We have to take special care with facts, accurately understanding what’s in front of us. But we also have to take a look at what is around us. . . We have to care about context. Context can present real limitations on the time we have to solve a problem.

Maybe you won’t be surprised that it looks like we have more cornerstones for our Village Square:

1. Context matters.

2. Get (un)personal.

To recap all four:

1. Facts matter.

2. Context matters.

3. Get (un)personal.

4. Think twice, act once.

Stay tuned for more yammering on all of the above (and more).

Add comment July 16th, 2007

Coal postmortem Part A: “Marrying in haste and repenting at leisure”

Tallahassee City Commissioner and Village Square co-chair Allan Katz had a MY VIEW last week in the Tallahassee Democrat, looking at lessons we might learn from the coal debate:

Now that the city of Tallahassee’s expensive flirtation with coal-plant ownership has been ended for us, it’s worth spending a little time reflecting on the lessons we should learn from the experience.

The city came dangerously close to living out the adage about marrying in haste and repenting at leisure. Our citizens, as the people who would have paid the price of repentance, have every right to demand better next time.

Setting aside Commissioner Katz’s comments on the content of the coal debate (to likely revive them when we talk “turkey” on this year’s Dinner at the Square topic: America’s Energy Future), there are Village Square lessons lurking in the points he makes on the process of the coal debate. While there is substantial disagreement even among our twelve member Village Square board of directors on coal, we’d likely find fairly round agreement on guidelines for making good decisions. That makes Commissioner Katz’s points on process lessons worth a linger:

. . . seek the facts. Don’t cook the facts. Don’t hide the inconvenient facts. Seek objective information, present it evenhandedly, completely and transparently, and trust the people to be smart enough to make an informed judgment without trying to sell them with a PR campaign.

. . .slow down enough to make an informed decision.

Here, Commissioner Katz has hit on two of a handful of founding concepts of the Village Square.

On facts: Good facts tend to produce good results and, well, vice-versa. While facts tend to be a little dull to wade through and don’t make for the sexiest advertising campaigns, even those on the “win” side of a PR-driven campaign tend to have to “pay later” if their position wasn’t originally grounded in an accurate assessment of fact.

On the point about slowing down: I’m reminded of the wise handyman adage “Measure twice, cut once.”

So, ta dah, our tickler for you on two cornerstones of our new Village Square:

1. Facts matter.

2. Think twice, act once.

Add comment July 16th, 2007